.beta.-1,3-glucans may be produced by microorganisms belonging to the genus Alcaligenes or Agrobacterium. One such glucan product, curdlan, is known [New Food Industry 20, 49 (1978), U.S. Pat. No. 3,754,925 etc].
Typical of such microorganisms is Alcaligenes faecalis var. myxogenes 10C3K (Agricultural Biological Chemistry 30, 196 (1966), etc.). Moreover, various mutants have been derived from this microorganism. These various mutants have been reported to include the uracil-requiring strain NTK-u (IFO 13140) and its non-uracil-requiring spontaneous mutants, namely ATCC 31749 and ATCC 31750 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,355,106).
In these references, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (the enzyme which catalyzes the reaction to convert oxaloacetic acid into phosphoenolpyruric acid) activity of the microorganisms is not disclosed.
Alcaligenes faecalis var. myxogenes 10C3 (IFO 13714) was subjected to taxonomic analysis and identified as Agrobacterium sp. biovar I in IFO Research Communications 15, 57-75 (1991) and List of Cultures 9th ed. (1992), both published by Institute for Fermentation, Osaka (IFO).